Clever Green at Design Connection 2007 in Buenos Aires

The products pictured above are just three of the neat green designs we spotted at Design Connection 2007, an annual design exhibition that is taking place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, until Friday, October 26th.

The first is a sofa from bonded leather by Patricio Lixklett, who we knew last year at this same exhibition.

Even though in 2006 he was not interested in green, this year Lixklett was asked to develop a product with the material of one of the show's sponsors: Cueroflex, a company that makes a kind of flexible bonded leather in rolls. He came up with a sofa that comes rolled and is folded by the user at home, and then secured with a kind of belt in the base.

Not only a clever idea, but greatly executed: the chair looks very comfortable, flexible and light, and can be customized to look like almost anything you want. This one was painted by Tramando.

Keep reading to see more, bigger pictures and to find out about more designs.The second design pictured above is a lamp by La Mano design studio called Big (not the most original name), which is made with middle density polyethylene leftovers. This brand seems also new in green, as all the previous work featured in their website is not related to green and we hadn't heard of it before.

Third in the pictures above is Cristian Mohaded's new bench, developed in team with Luciana Gonzalez Franco from 60% bonded leather. We had seen Cristian's work last year also, when he developed a bench from wood scraps.

Another one that called out attention was a piece from Once Neto, a studio from Chile.

It seemed like another purse with tarp or advertising banners (like the ones Freitag invented and other brands like Argentine Baumm re-mixed) but speaking with Denise Montt, coordinator of the recently established Remade in Chile, we found they are made with the rubber used to transmit ink in newspaper printing.

The explanation to this material is an association with La Tercera newspaper in which the company donates this material to designers from Remade in Chile, a deal that seemed very cool to us.

Once Neto's purse from ink transmitting rubber.

Some other great surprises were layout details from the exhibition, like a set of lights from all sorts of recovered materials by Argentine designer and entrepreneur Federico Lopez Picasso (yes, like the painter; no, he has nothing to do with Pablo) and a group of worm-like forms from scraps from the textile industry:

Last two to highlight for today are a garment by Okupa Uso del Desuso, a brand by Argentine designer Sol Di Sipio who offers clothing with recovered materials. This looked like a lace octopus, weird but somehow attractive.

Finally, the implementation of Tramando's knittings in a classic chair called Madrid designed by Horacio Baliero and sold through Manifesto firm. We're not sure if they're actually producing this combination, but it looked great as idea (the iron structure with the Tramando knittings).

Okupa's garment from recovered fabrics.Tramando's knittings in the Madrid chair.

As usual, we also met with some usual local greens like Neumatica, Xull, and Vacavaliente, who has a great new line of products we'll tell you about soon (it's worth special attention).

Design Connection is the evolution of a show previously called Cienporciento Diseño. This exhibition adopted a green profile last year by associating with Remade Italy to promote the design with recovered materials in Latin America.

It is one of the main design exhibitions in Buenos Aires, along with Puro Diseno.